LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume VIII, Issue 805, 20 January 1877, Page 3

LITERATURE.

THE SACKFUL OF SOVEREIGNS. A WONDERFUL STORY OF CHRISTMAS LUCK. ( Continued.) ‘ Yes,’ she answered ; ‘ but I don’t often go down there now; it has been sadly neglected of late years.’ ‘And the doll’s nest?’ went on the brother —‘ is that still in existence V ‘The what?’ inquired George from the threshold of the room where he was standing. ‘The doll’s nest,’ repeated Tom. ‘Do you mean to say that Alice never told you anything about the doll’s nest ? Why, we used to have rare fun there ! We used to sit in the doll’s nest for hours together when she and I were children—didn’t we, Alice ?’ ‘ Never heard of it,’ said George. ‘O, it was only a qrreer old bole in the largest apple tree,’ broke in Alice; ‘it made a rough sort of seat, and Tom used to lift me up into it, and put his arm round my waist, and hold me in alongside him, and wo used to call it “the doll’s nest,” that’s all. I have not given it a thought for years ; but it is there still, I have no doubt. ’ 'Well, I have often thought of it,’ said Tom ; * thought of it when I’ve been thousands of miles away, the other side of the globe—thought of it and dreamt of it frequently, and you and I sitting in it, dear.’ ‘ Well, I have never heard of it,’ repeated George ; * but good-night now, old boy, I’m very glad you are back again safe and sound once more.’ And not long after, everybody was fast asleep, and stillness reigned throughout the house. With Christmas morning the conversation seemed inclined to rise to the happy key. Everything favoured a joyous tone of talk ; the sun shone bright and clear, and set the snow and the icicles sparkling like jewels. ; Little Lilian looked fresher and better, her mother said, than she had done for weeks. She thought her uncle’s return had begun to act like a tonic on the child. Alice herself likewise seemed to have taken a dose of it, for there was a genuine happiness in her face to which it had Jong been a stranger. As to the sailor, he had so brushed himself up, and polished his brown checks with soap and water, that he was hardly recognisable for the travel-stained wanderer of the evening before. George Woodwyn alone had failed to catch this infection of beaming looks. He had a meditative absent air about him, quite unusual, and ate his breakfast without seeming to know what he was doing. To all inquiries as to what was the matter he answered ‘ Nothing :’ there was nothing the matter with him, not a bit of it; but it took h.m some time even to reply thus much ; and the strangeness of his manner continued | long after breakfast was finished, and all the > way to church, and was quite observable | even in church ; and Alice went so far as to | nudge her brother several times during the | service, as much as to say, ‘ Do you see how I strange he is still ?’ And Tom would re’s spend by raising his eyebrows; and the S child was caught by them both watching her I father, and wondering what it could all j mean. For let it be clearly understood there ; was no expression of unhappiness on his i face ; on the contrary, there was almost a | smile playing over it at times, as though he | were thinkingabout something not altogether | unpleasant that he could not "forget. When church was over, and the party | were returning through the crisp clean air, I everybody now a little silent under the influence of George’s strange manner, he himself suddenly stopped in the middle of the quiet lane which was the short cut home. He planted his umbrella firmly down in front of him, as if to give additional force to something he was evidently about to say, and then, looking with the most serio-comic expression possible, first at his wife on the left, and then at her brother who was on the right, began : ‘I must tell you—l can’t keep it any longer. You will both laugh at me perhaps, and I feel inclined to laugh at it myself, and yet it is no laughing matter. At first I thought I would not tell you ; but I cannot shake it off, and so I must out with it. The fact is, I saw grandfather last night!’ ‘ Saw grandfather ! What do you mean ?’ from both sides. ‘ What I say. I saw grandfather, old Mr Matthew Rickman, as plainly as I ever saw him in my life.’ ‘Why, you are dreaming, George,’ said his wife. ‘ No, you were dreaming,’ cried Tom. 1 Wed, you may choose to say so, and to ihiuk so,’ went on the speaker, ‘but there he was, si anding at the foot of our bed ; and if 1 was dreaming—why, then all life’s a dream, for I never saw anything more real tince I was born.’ George was so earnest in hia assertion, that the listeners were distinctly impressed M least Tom was, for his sister soon began ro laugh ; but the brother, on the contrary, row graver-and graver, and after fixing hie' eye's on the ground for a minute looked up inquiringly, saying,

4 Did he speak? ’ ‘Yes,’ answered George seriously; ‘ and •h't’s what seems so convincing If I had only seen hire, I might have thought it a dream ; but I heard him as plainly as I aaw him.’ ‘ What did he say ? asked the sailor solemnly. 4 Why,’ went on George Woodwyn, 4 he sa' i these words, though what on earth they meant I can’t tell, but he said distinctly, “ hhoot an arrow from the doll’s nest.” ’ Tom, giving a perceptible start, looked at his sister : she was grave now, and returned hie look. Then, for a minute, they both seemed to be on the same track of thought, and the family likeness, always strong between them, appeared stronger than ever, whilst the expression in each of their faces was identical. ‘ How odd ! ’ at length they both exclaimed in a breath. Alice continued : 4 Don’t you remember, Tom, we used to shoot with our bows and arrows down amongst the old apple and pear trees?’ • Of course I do,’ was the answer ; ‘ have I ever forgotten those days 7 and what’s more, don’t you remember why we once shot an arrow from “ the doll’s nest” itself ? ’ Alice dropped her eyes in thought for a second ; then said, 1 To be sure ; when we hid our money-box.’ Her brother nodded : ‘ Yes, and father saw us, and laughed at our queer pracks. Then there was another pause, when George, moving on down the lane, said, ‘ Well, what has all this got to do with my dream, if you choose to call it a dream? ’ But he received no answer for several moments, during which Tom was murmuring to himself agtun and again in deep cogitation, ‘ Can it be possible 7 can it be possible? ’ ‘ Can what be possible 7 ’ he was asked, ‘ Just this,’ he said : ‘ we had a common money-box, Alice and I, and we used to hid© it down at the bottom of the orchard, in the thickest corner of the underwood—buried in fact; and we decided on the place we would hide it in first of all by shooting an arrow as we sat. one day in “ the doll’s nest,” and the spot where the arrow fell was to be the spot where we were to bury our box. Then, in order to find it again (because we never disturbed it till we had something to put into it, and so it was sometimes left for a week or two together), I, with my sailor-like turn of mind, took the bearings ; that is, we were to get the old stack of twisted chimneys on the cottage exactly on a line with “ the doll’s nest,” and then twenty yards straight away on ffiat line, down towards the orchard wall, was the exact spot where we should find the box. Why, Alice, you must remember all this surely,’ urged the speaker warmly. ‘Certainly,’ she answered; ‘it all comes back to mo, now you speak of it, vividly enough ; still, I don’t quite see what it has to do with George’s dream. ‘ No, nor I,’ echoed the husband. 4 Be patient, and I’ll tell you,’ went on Tom, 4 what I think it has got to do with it. Life at sea may make people superstitious. They say that sailors are so ; perhaps I am. I have dreamt and seen many queer things in my time not always quite easy to make out ; but let that pass : what occurs to me now is simply this. As I said, father knew of and saw our dodge about the money-box, and it may be just possible that in his latter days, when he got a little queer and cranky, as we know he did, and with his views about property and probate duties and so on, that I he may have remembered what we used to 3 do, and have done something himself of the , same kind. It was t v ls he was going to ( refer to perhaps when he began to write the | words, 44 That my children only may under- | stand how the main bn—” I say, it is j just possible—odd men do odd things ; J who would ever have thought of his having j £4OOO of gold stowed away just under hia j bed-head?’ 3 Tom’s reasoning so excited him that he | stopped suddenly, looking straight into I space, saying, ‘ I suppose it has never enI tered your heads to have a look round about the garden, to see if there were any signs of i abiding-place?’ Of course it never had entered either of j their heads, and they said so. j 4 Then it has mine,’ said Tom; 4 and \ what’s more, I’ll have a look before I am an j hour older! Dear heart ! if I should be right j after all! Come along.’ j They had reached by this time the end of ■<, the lane where it passed round the lower v part of the old moss-grown wall surrounding I the cottage and grounds. At one of the I angles there was a heavy nailed door. 4 Can’t ! we got in here ?’ said Tom, giving it a poke ; impatiently with his stick. 0, dear, no ; it, ; hadn’t been opened' for years : the path on \ the other side had been long disused, and | overgrown with bashes. | 4 So much the better,’ continued the « sailor ; 4 the less chance of the place having I been disturbed.’ | 'Then the three, with Lilian following, all j now quite excited by Tom’s idea, soon j found their way to the inner side of the I garden wall through the ivied arch at the front entrance. I The seaman, with his experienced eye, i first of all took a general survey. Then, pushing his way through the tangled bushes, scattering the snow, now softened by the wami sun, in showers right and left, halted beneath a wide spreading gnarled apple tree, j 4 There’s 44 the doll’s nest,” he exclaimed, I pointing up to a great bungling bole or knot where two large branches forked ; 4 1 feel inclined to swing myself up into it as I used, only I’m afraid it wouldn’t bear me now. Yes, there it is, and now I’ve got it in a line with the chimneys, just as in the old days ! Then twenty long strides will bring me down close under the wall—ah ! But this brushwood is thicker than it used to be,’ he continued, as he tramped heavily through the neglected undergrowth, his companions watching him from the under slope by the strip of kitchen garden, He has reached to within a yard of the wall, and he stands peering for a while in amongst the densest part of the tangle. Lifting a branch there with his stick, and putting two or three aside here with his hands, he makes another step forward, peers clown once or twice again, throws up his arm as if in signal to those behind, and then with a shout plunges, as it seems, headlong into the bushes, and all but disappears. George gets down to him in a minute or two, and by the time Alice has managed, with astounding disregard of flounces, and the effect of wet and thorns upon them, to come up with the pioneers, she see them engaged in clearing aside with feet and hands a mass of accumulated rubbish fallen leaves, ; earth and underwood. The snow has been . very light, and has not penetrated far below the upper twigs. (To he mttVmd,)